Archive for March, 2009

There’s an old expression that, “No good deed goes unpunished.” This is especially true of decent, good-hearted Palestinians who dare to reach out to their Israeli-Jewish neighbors. I am not talking about the liars and murderers whom politically-correct Westerners want to believe will change their stripes to spots, like Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists — they will never agree to peace with Israel. I am talking about the real Palestinian peace-makers — those who are ignored by many in our “mainstream” media — like Wafaa Younis. She dared to try to teach Palestinian children to turn away from violence and channel their energies into music and making peace with Israel. Even “worse,” Younis dared expose her kids to the history of the Holocaust. Of course, she has been promptly punished by the Palestinian establishment. Martin Fletcher of MSNBC today revealed the sad story of Younis:

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say. …

Palestinians have so loudly and for so long (nearly a century) rejected Zionism that Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, Yasir Arafat, and Hamas may appear to command unanimous Palestinian support.

But no: polling research finds that a substantial minority of Palestinians, about 20 percent, is ready to live side-by-side with a sovereign Jewish state. Although this minority has never been in charge and its voice has always been buried under rejectionist bluster, Hillel Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has uncovered its surprisingly crucial role in history.

Why does a soap opera become a huge success in the Arab world? According to the Guardian the Syrian television program “Bab al-Hara” (The Neighborhood Gate) has set “the Arab World Agog” and is watched by millions. Generally, the article explains the phenomenon by saying that it is great entertainment and the hero is, “A heartthrob who looks like Johnny Depp.”

But there’s another dimension the story misses, which tells us a great deal about Arab society and politics today. Here’s how an expert who watched the show explains it:

Western Europe has gone through two major stages in its recent immigration history. In the first stage, European leaders misjudged the effects of immigration and, in the second, they miscalculated how hard it would be to stop an immigration dynamic.

Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, European countries have changed from net sources of emigration to attractive destinations for immigration. Today Muslims, many from rural traditional areas, comprise the bulk of non-European immigrants to Europe. Even those who have settled in cities retain a village mentality and are seen as backward by the business and cultural elites in their home countries. Moroccans who settled in the Netherlands and Belgium, for example, are mostly Berbers from the Rif mountains, not the Arab cultural elite[1] from Casablanca, Rabat, or Fez. These immigrants came to Europe in order to build railroads, work in the coal mines, clean streets, and do the jobs that Europeans did not want to do.[2] Both “push” and “pull” factors affect immigration. Push factors are those that lead the immigrant to leave his homeland while pull factors are those which attract him to a different country. Europe and other Western liberal countries exert a strong pull on immigrants. However, stopping immigration is not easy, if at all possible, since the same European liberal laws that attract immigrants also prevent states from acting to stop them from coming or, later, to deport them.

The problem, as we see repeatedly, with much media coverage of issues involving Israel is the way the story is defined. There need not be any sense of bias by a reporter. Merely copying what other journalists do or from a specific ideological framework — not because reporters have preconceptions but because they make far less effort than in the past to balance them — leads to a conception of the story that is skewed.

This appears subtly in news stories but very openly in analysis pieces. Consider Steven Gutkin, “Analysis: Mideast peace up to interlocking deals,” March 16, 2009. The lead is innovative but a bit clunky:

Jeffrey Imm (a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Federal government, with work for the FBI, DHS, and TSA) provides first-hand testimony at “Virginia: Bullying Mob Packs Govt Meeting in Support of Islamic Supremacist Institution” of what took place yesterday at a Fairfax County Planning Commission meeting. The topic was a possible exemption of the Islamic Saudi Academy from a zoning regulation so it could build an expansion of the school. According to Imm’s estimate, 600 supporters of the ISA turned up wearing printed badges reading “I Support ISA” with the ISA logo and the Saudi Arabian emblem.

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami will speak at La Trobe University’s Centre for Dialogue tomorrow. According to centre director Joseph Camilleri, Khatami’s legacy was significant because he “articulated a powerful and coherent message in defence of democracy and human freedom”.

“Just as significant though generally ignored by the Bush administration, was Khatami’s opening to the West,” Camilleri argues. “He pursued an active diplomacy with western Europe, visited the US, strongly condemned terrorism, mended fences with Arab neighbours and seemed prepared to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment program.”

Er, ah… it’s the year 2009, but Saudi Arabia’s Islamic thought-police are once again busily mistreating the country’s women. Though this is nothing new, it is important for Westerners to realize how terribly misogynistic, distorted, and backward the Saudi religious establishment is — in an era were women have made great strides in gaining equality with their male counterparts. From the AP:

The new Obama administration has named most of its nominees for the key Middle East positions in the White House as well as in the State and Defense Departments. It is thus possible to make an initial assessment of where Obama is going from what is known about these people. The appointees include Dan Shapiro and most likely Puneet Talwar at the National Security Council; George Mitchell, Dennis Ross, Bill Burns, Beth Jones (most likely), and Jeffrey Feltman at the State Department; Tony Blinken in Vice-President Joe Biden’s office; and Michele Flournoy and Sandy Vershbow at the Defense Department.

WASHINGTON (March 19, 2009) — On December 12, 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel raided six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in the largest immigration enforcement action in U.S. history. The plants are located in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, Colorado, and Utah. A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies examines the raids and their aftermath. It notes the historical context of an industry whose workers have seen a dramatic decline in wages over the past 30 years as well as the raids’ economic effects. The report also discusses both positive and negative reactions in these six communities.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has recently elected State Senator Larry Shaw as the organization’s new chairman. Is Senator Shaw a “useful idiot” or a co-conspirator in CAIR’s plans for converting North America into an Islamist dictatorship?

In an article in the News & Observer (North Carolina), Shaw appears to be a low-key chairman; as Shaw puts it, “I fly beneath the radar … that suits my style”.

The conversion of Christians in Europe and the United States to Islam has become a matter of debate in some Western countries. Muslim scholars have called on immigrant Muslims to become involved in summoning non-Muslims to their faith. Indeed, the call on Muslim migrants to proselytize has become central in contemporary Islamic writings, not only in books, but also in sermons — many online on YouTube — and others on DVDs, and Islamic websites. The strategies that the global Islamic media uses to promote conversion of Christians to Islam illustrate both the perceptions of Islamists and can expose themes to defend and promote in cultural and public diplomacy.

I’d alluded earlier to reports that Thomas Saenz, MALDEF’s former top attorney, had been tapped to head the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. Apparently, that was true, and he’d accepted the job, but then the White House threw him under the bus (it’s getting crowded down there) “because of Tom’s work on immigration rights,” in the words of LA County supervisor Gloria Molina. Another good sign! Instead, the administration has nominated Maryland labor secretary Tom Perez, who had earlier been rumored to be the pick for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. While the White House may have figured Perez will be easier to confirm, he doesn’t actually seem any better on immigration; after all, he’s former president of the board of Casa de Maryland, the state’s premier pro-illegal-immigration advocacy group.